


In the Forest

by BagtheBagisnotaBag



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Timelines, Alternia, Blood, Body Dysphoria, Earth C (Homestuck), Fainting, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Vacillation, Species Swap, Time Travel, Troll Culture (Homestuck), Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2020-12-20 18:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21061307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BagtheBagisnotaBag/pseuds/BagtheBagisnotaBag
Summary: Dave is exploring the forests of Earth C when he stumbles over a clearing where the grass is dead, no wind blows, and the flow of time ticks to a stop. A strange rock in the centre of the Dead Spot takes him from his benign life and thrusts him into a world where danger and death come from above and his closest companion does not know his face.Dave is a troll, Karkat is different, and Sollux fears capture more than death, but they have each other, and life goes on.





	1. I Take My First Steps

You are Dave Strider and you are currently picking your way through the thick underbrush of the forest near your home. Karkat trudges along beside you, letting you lead him into its depths, back to the place you found. “The clearing doesn't exactly have anything _interesting_ in it per se. I just think it’s neat.”

“Neat.” Karkat scoffs, “How is dead grass _neat_?”

“Well, first of all, it’s in the shape of a perfect circle - like a ring of doom - a Dead Spot or something. Or maybe a crop circle. Which would make me want to go spouting on about it being a sign of alien life but you and I both know aliens aren't real.”

Karkat grins at you with all his teeth, “Come back here and I’ll show you _not real_.”

“Nah, babe. You are but a fluctuation of my imagination, an illusion of the brain. Your very existence is but my will alone-”

“I think you have that backwards Dave. I’m the one who created _you_ in my own image. If anything you're but a product of the deranged inner workings of _my_ fucked-up psyche.” Karkat stumbles over a tree root and you laugh out loud. 

“Thank gog that psyche of yours had a tiny speck of cool in it to create me. Just like the tensest wisp of cool kid deep in your gnome - hey!” Karkat lunges forward to tackle you, but you flashstep out of the way and promptly trip over a low bush mid-flash. You let out an 'oof' as you eat dirt. “Not cool, Dude. Don’t bring me down to your level.” You roll over onto your back.

Instead of replying Karkat just laughs at you. You pout and lift your arms up for him, expecting him to pull you to your feet. “Help me up.” Instead of complying, he grabs you by the arms and starts hauling your limp corpse along the forest floor. You let him. 

For a few hundred feet you watch him from below as he sweats and strains, pulling your dead weight over normally easily traversable obstacles, then you speak up, “We aren't even going in the right direction.” 

Karkat groans out loud, then flops down on top of you. You let out your second 'oof' of the day as you catch him around the shoulders. “Just leave me here to die.” you hear him mumble into your shirt. 

“Haha. Nah, dude.” You hug him tighter around the middle, hooking your arms under his, and float the both of you off the ground and above the canopy. He stiffens and clings back as you shift upright in the air and take his full weight. “We came out here for a mission and that mission is to scope out that cool new anomaly I found in our back garden.” 

You start flying in the direction of the clearing, Karkat is clinging to you at this point, legs and all, “Like it’s honestly really weird there - the lack of life in the middle of this thriving forest. But the strangest thing is that - OK. So you know how I can feel the pulse of the universe or something?” 

He grunts in affirmation, digging his claws into the back of your shirt.

“I am the god of time. It is me. Time flows through me and I feel every second ticking past.”

“Yes, I am aware of your superior god powers, Dave.”

“Well, that sort of just… stops, there.” Tree’s drift by below, and as you get closer to the clearing, the beat of time grows distant. You pull Karkat against you tighter.

“What do you mean stops. Is time frozen?”

“No, it’s more like... _I_ stop. Like my hold on time fade away and I’m just… normal there. I guess.” The gap in the trees comes into view, and you descend.

“Huh.”

You stand there on the edge of the Dead Spot until Karkat notices you’ve stopped flying and clambers off you. “Soooo, yeah. This is the place.”

“I’m not sure if I should be underwhelmed or relieved. All this effort to get here and it _is_ just some dead grass.” The wilting grass spreads out in a circle of death. In the center there is barely any grass at all - just blackened dirt, then a few meters our from the center brown grass still exists all shriveled up. The grass gets greener as it gets further away until other plants start sprouting. Nettles and ferns and stocky bushes. Then even further from the center trees start appearing again, until it merges back into forest once again. 

Here at the edge of the circle, you can hear the birds singing behind you and the wind whistling through the canopy above, but the breeze doesn't reach you. On the far side of the circle, a decaying log rests on its side. 

“I hope you have your science pants on because it is about to get downright scientific up in this bitch.”

“Please. Is a science word not in my trollian name? Just admit it, you needed me for this. Watch this.” Karkat crouches down to grab something then starts picking his way towards the center of the circle, carrying a green leaf, “You were dumbfounded by all this scientific potential and had to get a professional in.” You watch as he brings the leaf closer to the center of the circle, and as he does, it starts to wilt. “Huh. I'll be fucked.”

“I’ll admit, that is pretty astonishing. I almost don’t want to put my butt back in that doom ring, even in the name of science.” You trudge after Karkat anyway, ready to pull him out if he starts to look crispy around the edges. You don't want what happened to that leaf to happen to Karkat too. 

“Well, I appreciate you risking your precious butt to come in here and help me with the science _you_ bought me too. Oh hey! What’s that?” He then proceeds to pick up a shiny rock at the center of the Dead Spot. You feel the world shift around you as if all the air in the vicinity is tethered to that stone. Like the pull was strong enough that when Karkat bought the rock up to inspect, all the air moved with it. In the same movement, you feel a dozen seconds churn past in a flash. Without thinking, you lunge for Karkat, aiming to knock that _cursed thing_ out of his lax grasp, but as soon as your hand connects with the smooth stone, your consciousness folds in on itself, and you feel no more.

*

You are on your feet, sword at the ready before you are even fully awake. Your head then proceeds to make its pounding self known. You haven't even opened your eyes yet. The feeling of your brain trying to escape out your ears brings you to your hands and knees in the dirt. The blade slips from your fingers. 

What the fuck just happened? 

You spend a few seconds in dumbfounded confusion as you try and fail to take stock of what the everloving fuck just happened. The ground is solid beneath your hands. You feel the sharp edges of stones and packed soil under your grip. You cling to it as the world tries to tip over around you. 

Your danger sense is fucking _blaring_ and you wish you hadn’t dropped your sword. You wish you had captchalogued it or something and now you are falling over and the world is spinning worse and you conk out, right the fuck there in the middle of the Dead Spot, for a second time. 

*

You are on your feet, battle-ready, hands griped around empty air where your sword should be before you are even awake. When you blink your eyes open, you notice it’s dark out. This time you stumble a step forward and proceeded to puke on the dead grass in front of you. Progress.

You wish there was a steadying tree to lean against. The Dead Spot has taken the throne as your least favorite place on Earth C. There isn’t even a fucking tree to lean against in your time of need. 

You notice the glint of your fallen sword as you sway on your feet, hands braced on your knees. Rather than try and bend over to pick it up you captchalogue it from your hunched over position. 

Your thoughts drift to where Karkat is and then suddenly you’re breaking out in a cold sweat. Oh. Fuck. _Where is Karkat?_ Like you got fucked over by a rock and all but what happened to Karkat? Your first instinct is to check the ground around you for an unconscious troll but to no avail. 

On automatic you start towards home, stumbling through the purple light. Did he go off to get help? He can’t carry you, we established that earlier. Getting help seems like something he would do. After realizing you were fully out for the count you're sure he would go back and find someone. 

The strange influence of the Dead Spot means you don’t know what time it is. You didn’t realize it was so close to dusk when the two of you set out. (Who are you kidding, it wasn't close to dusk at all. You are the god of time. It is you. It was exactly 2.17pm when you managed to drag Karkat out of the house and started on this terrible adventure. You've been out of it for a concealingly long time.) 

Maybe he’s on his way back right now, help in hand. Sure, it’s only a short hour trek to the Dead Spot on foot but like… he is coming back for you. Right? 

Hmmm.

Maybe he got lost on the way back?

Honestly, you don’t know why you didn’t think of that earlier. (You pounding head is why.) And then you realize Karkat had his phone on him and therefore shouldn't have needed to leave you alone in order to get help. Help would have come to him. 

That thought causes you to stumble to a stop. That and you finally process the purple hew of the light and the creeping brightness of dawn. Moonlight isn’t purple. The cold sweat of dread comes back full force. 

Is this hell?

Are you dead and have gone to hell?

What the shit did that rock do to you? 

Maybe your head is just fucked up. Can head injuries affect your vision?

God. Of course they can, dumbass. You know this. You also know you shouldn’t be up and wandering but fuck if you’re going to stay at the fucking Dead Spot until someone finds you. 

You wish you could think straight right now. You wish you knew what the logical thing to do was. You just want to go home. 

Your mind focuses on home like the beacon of safety it is. If it comes down to it you are going to drag yourself there. 

A stray thought wafts past like an untethered fart. You can fly. 

This thought takes a second to get through the thick fog of pain and exertion to the front of your brain. You then fail to fly, as if flying were an extra limb that suddenly never existed. You are going to execute a pirouette off the handle if for some godforsaken reason you have forgotten how to fly. Did you knock your head that badly that it punched the flight right out of you? Fly, damn it!

Nope.

Flying is just not happening today. 

You want to scream. Instead, you shutter your emotions off, ignore the pain, and continue trudging forward. 

The sky continues to lighten, the purple of the night fades out to a normal bright white of sunlight that gives you little relief. 

It takes you a while to notice that your awareness of the beat and pulse of time has not returned. You then proceeded to have another mental breakdown. 

By the time you notice that it has been an hour (You think it's been an hour. You can't tell.) of painful trudging through thick forest and you are not yet home, you are panting. Dizzy with sickness, your head pounding with pain, you stumble to a stop.

Man, it has gotten bright. Your shades are doing nothing to block out the glint of sunlight through treetops. It pierces through your shades like they aren't there and dances a merry little jig on the back of your retinas. 

This is the worst headache you have ever had. 

You think the trees have been getting denser rather than phasing into that nice park behind your house like the should be doing. 

You think you are still deep in the forest. You must have gone the wrong way in your confusion.

But you're unsure of how long you’ve actually been walking, or when you took a wrong turn, what with the dawn sun beating so harshly into your eyes and the world tilting around you as you walk.

Actually, you've stopped walking.

The air is now thick with heat and the morning sun glints in your eyes through the shades, blinding you. You don’t think you can start walking again.

You ponder this fact for a minute (has a minute passed? You can’t tell anymore) before deciding sitting down would be the best course of action. Somehow you find yourself lying flat on your front in amongst the bushes. You close your eyes and succumb to the pain and exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been sitting on this one for a while to the point that i actually have 4 chapters already written. and now that i've finished my 30,000 word uni project i can actually get back to my wips!


	2. I Meet My Best Friend

You thought you were in pain before, now you're so parched you can feel your lip crack as your mouth opens. Your thirst is unreal. You have been wandering the desert for 40 days and all you found were endless sand dunes and shriveled juice-less cacti. 

The eyes squinting back at you belong to Karkat’s familiar face and all at once you are quenched, cool relief floods through you. You have the strength to give a crooked smile and croak out a pathetically inaudible “Water?” before shutting your eyes again against the light. 

You can feel enough to know you are lying somewhere soft rather than on the forest floor. Thank fucking Christ. You made it home. You squeeze your eyes shut and don't feel any moisture bead at the corners of them but you know that if you were any more hydrated than your current desiccated self sweet tears of relief would be falling down your cheeks. Karkat must have removed your shades. You don’t bother trying to reach for them on the dresser. You just lay there and wait. 

It doesn't take long. A straw is poking at your lips and you take a long sip before the straw is taken away. That was the most glorious sip of liquid you have ever taken in your life. You may even be moved enough to change your ways and say that water is better than apple juice it was so good. 

You hear Karkat moving around in the room. Thank Troll Jesus and the mirthful messiahs for Karkat. You smack your lips and decide you can talk. “What happened?” and by talk you mean whisper. Your throat is still worn to shit. 

Karkat huffs out a breath from the other side of the room and moves closer. “We found you lying out in the forest being picked at by stray lusus and dying from sun bake.”

“Sounds about right.” You cough, “Knew you’d find me.” Karkat presses the straw back to your lips.

“Is that so. How did you know that? What else do you know about me?” that takes you a second to comprehend, busy as you are sucking down sweet sweet life-giving water before Karkat takes that straw away again. When you do get around to understanding, it makes you pause.

“You, uhhh." you stumble over your words, confused. "I knew you wouldn’t leave me there on purpose.” You open your eyes to squint up at him, “Babe, bring the water back.”

“Don’t call me that.” If you didn’t have your eyes open you would think he was just being prissy about the pet name, but Karkat is shock still and serious.

“Right. I get it. Karkat, I know you’re pissed. I’m sorry.” Karkat looks more alarmed then confused now. You don't understand why. You press on, “I should have left well enough alone-”

“What the fuck are you talking about? How do you know my name!?” Your eyes widen in alarm, and you watch as he takes a step back from you, fear and anger on his face. “Fuck this I am not equipped for this.” Then he bolts for the far door and slams it behind him. 

What. 

Is this a prank?

Glancing around you don’t recognize the room. In fact, it’s like no house you’ve ever seen. You seem to be in a living room type area seeing as the bed you thought you were on is actually a couch next to a coffee table. But you can see no windows and now that you think about it Karkat was wearing something drab and shapeless, an outfit he’s never worn before. Did your friends take you somewhere and set up some elaborate prank?

Why are they pranking you? It’s not even your birthday. Then again John would say that now is the perfect time - when you least expect it. 

You feel your parched lips and dry skin. You feel the pounding of your head and your painful gritty eyes and decide that no, they aren't pranking you. This isn’t a fun joke you can all laugh about later. You just want to cry. 

You blink your eyes open again at the sound of someone storming into the room. It’s not Karkat. This troll is wearing the same drab shapeless outfit under what looks like a thick white woolen(? That might not be wool.) cloak. They have a pair of sharp twin horns and pupil-less primary-colored eyes. 

You-

Is that-?

You think Karkat has talked about this troll before, but in the way someone talks about an old friend they haven't seen in a long time. Wasn’t he dead? 

“OK psychic boy, here is how it’s going to go down.” Those are some big canines, they must be the cause of his lisp, also why the fuck is he calling you psychic? “You're going to answer some questions for me and if I like you enough I might not toss you back out into the daylight to get yourself killed.” 

“Noted.” He is going to kick you out. You captchalogue the glass of water, straw and all, and notice now he breaks his bad cop character long enough for his mouth to twitch up. 

“Also hand over your strife specibus.” You frown and tense at that. You don’t want to go back out there unarmed. You never like to go anywhere unarmed, even if you have cut your sword count down to only one on you at all times. 

You must hesitate for too long. Before you can think about it for any longer your body gets seized in a full body bind, blue and red energy crackling over your skin. Your heart starts racing. You're immobilized. You don’t like not being able to defend yourself. 

He must have thought that frown on your face was you deciding if you should attack him, and seen your hesitation as a chance to subdue you first. “Hey, stop man! I’ll hand it over.” You pop your swordkind specibus out, and the card drops to the floor with a thud. 

He captchalogues it himself and lets the sparks fizzle back into non-existence, releasing you. Now, without your strifekind, you really are helpless. And the sunstroke means you can hardly move as it is. Absently you take a sip of your stolen water while the troll before you sits down on the chair on the far side of the coffee table. 

“What’s my name?” he asks. You don’t know his name. Karkat has mentioned it a few times before but you never bothered remembering it. 

“Uhhh, Fabio?” your eyes are starting to sting again from being open so long so you close them, “Do you know where my shades went? I need them to see.” 

He’s still for a second then gets up. You listen as he opens and closes the door. Having your eyes closed is making you kind of dizzy actually so you squint them open, concentrating on the coffee table in front of you and taking slow breaths. It’s too bright in here.

There is a hushed conversation through the door you have trouble concentrating on, then the sounds of someone returning. “Here.” it’s Fabio with your shades. He thrusts them in front of your face. You put them on with stiff movements.

The relief is immediate. Fabio sits down. “My name isn’t Farbio, It’s Sollux.” He pronounces his name carefully around his lisp. Poor guy. A name like that with a lisp like his. Must be rough. “So if you don’t know who I am, how do you know who _he_ is?” he points back towards the door he just came from. 

“I’ve known Karkat for years.”

“Years? That's not a real word.”

“I mean I’ve know Karkat for more than a sweep. We live together.”

“No. _we_ live together. You’re just some delusional wannabe daywalker who collapsed in our territory yesterday. What the fuck, dude. That is a weird thing to do. What were you even doing out in the forest in full daylight?” Is this... Is this like… a dream bubble? Is this a Karkat who never met you? But Sollux’s eyes aren’t white like the dead's are. This Sollux, whoever he is, is alive. 

“I was showing Karkat a cool clearing I found.”

“I’ve never met you before in my life.” comes Karkat’s gruff voice from the doorway.

“So maybe it’s a different Karkat. Am I dreaming or something?” You close your eyes again, “Dreams don’t usually hurt this much.”

“Are you saying there are multiple Karkat’s on Alternia?”

“That’s fucked, dude. I don’t want more of me!” Karkat says, coming into view.

“Uhh. No I- Alternia?” 

“The planet you’re on dipshit, yes. Of course this is Alternia! We're all pre-adult trolls! Where else would we be!?” 

“OK. Wait a second. I can understand if the dream bubble took us to Alternia, that’s plausible. But did you just say ‘We are all trolls’? I don’t understand. I’m not a troll. I’m human. Like from Earth.” 

“No, you’re not,” Karkat says to your startled face. He's completely serious. You can tell. Karkat isn't a good actor. 

“Yes I am!” 

“I don’t know what the fuck _is_ wrong with you but human ain’t it. You. Are. A. troll.” instead of replying to him you just stare back into his intense eyes, furious and scared. 

No one else is speaking so you take a dry breath, “This isn’t... This isn’t right. I have to go back.” 

“What. Outside!? No! We just saved you from there!” 

“No, I don’t want - Why do you even care what I do. Like you said - you don’t even know me. Fuck you. You don't care. I want _my_ Karkat back.” Your eyes jump from Karkat's face to Sollux. You find no sympathy in either of their expressions.

“Well I have news for you buddy, you’re not going back to whatever planet you think you're from. Don’t you think we haven’t tried to escape this god awful planet!? The only way is through conscription and fuck my nook if they wouldn't cull both of us on sight. Or did you conveniently forget you have red blood too, just like you forgot you were a troll.” 

“No. I-”

“No. Again with the 'no'. That’s right. We save your life and all you can fucking say is 'no'. Why are we even wasting oxygen housing you when all you do is insult us for our compassion and hog all the couch space.”

Karkat has never yelled at you like this. This isn’t Karkat. He talks like him and acts like him but your Karkat has never been scary when he was angry. You keep your face blank, fully shaken to your core by the unknown man in front of you.

“I’m sorry.” You watch his face soften as you’ve seen it do so many times before. It's not the same though, you know it's not. “I’m listening. I’m just confused.” 

Sollux replies from the chair opposite you. “Well, so are we. We don’t know who you are, but you’re here now. How about a question exchange? I ask one question and then you get to ask one back. A nice civil back and forth.” He's been watching you the entire time. Probably ready to restrain you if you made any sudden move, not that you could move anyway. You're dry and sore and exhausted. 

You nod, “I’d be down for some clarification.” 

Karkat nods once then turns to Sollux, ignoring you for the minute, “How about this. I’ll do the question exchange while you go back on your rounds. I can more than handle this douche. We don’t want to be caught out just because we bought home something more interesting than lunch.”

“I’m on it.” Sollux releases you from his bi-colored gaze and you sink back into the couch cushions. You didn’t realize his unwavering stare was affecting you so much. "Actually, here. Take this as well." Sollux hands Karkat your specibus. "I'm no good with blades." Douchebag. Karkat sits down in his place and watches you as Sollux leaves the room.

If you were prone to attacking, this Karkat could more than handle you. You didn’t notice before but whatever he's been eating has gone straight to his biceps. Or maybe this Karkat never spent three years doing fuck all on a space rock and actually spent that time training. 

“I’ll try and keep it short - you need to get into the recuperacoon sometime today if you want to heal. First question - What’s your name?” 

You breathe out a shuddering breath, and reply, “Dave Strider. Where did you take me? There're no windows.”

“This is our hive. Well, I say _hive_, it’s where we’ve been living for the last sweep anyway. But the no windows thing is because we’re underground. It was easier to keep hidden this way. We had to make do with our own building abilities. It’s not like we could have gotten carpenter drones in to build this place. My turn. What is human?”

You breathe out. What a question. It’s starting to sink in that you are no longer on Earth C. “It’s a species. We originated from the planet Earth.”

“Earth? Is that a planet the Empire conquered? Or are you like a furry or something?” He looks intrigued but also highly skeptical.

You grimace and don’t answer, “Hey. It’s my turn to ask questions. Where exactly are we?”

“Alternia, numbnuts. In the middle of the South Equinox Forest. I’m not sure how you could’ve gotten here if you don’t even know where here is. Me and Sollux had to trek for perigee’s to find this place.”

“Perigee. Now that’s one I haven’t heard.”

“Haha! Now who’s trying to sneak questions in when it isn’t their turn! What is Earth?”

“It’s where I live. On Earth, humans are the dominating species.”

“This sounds like a made up place.”

“Hey, fuck you. It’s as real as I am human.” 

“So fake then. You aren't even human”

“I am so human.” Karkat rolls his eyes at you and gets up. You listen to his familiar stomp around the room and feel a pang of loneliness for your own Karkat. 

Karkat comes back with a mirror and doesn’t hesitate to thrust it in front of you triumphantly. The person who stares back at you from behind cool shades is not you. His hair is black. His skin is gray. He has horns. 

He has - no you have - horns that come out at a slight angle from your head and curve back in a half-circle, the points almost hidden in your hair. Your black hair. You no longer look albino, no longer washed out and pale. You look monochromatic. It’s almost disturbing how much you don’t recognize yourself. 

You’re…

You’re not sure. What do you do with this information? You run your tongue over your teeth, remembering the sharp fangs you’ve seen on trolls before, but your teeth don't feel any different. You _feel_ the same but…

Now that you can see them, your headache seems to be originating from where your horns sink into your (dark shiny black) hair. You shift your head slightly and feel the difference in weight as they move. You had noticed that before but just brushed it off as another symptom of your probable concussion and general unwellness. 

“Huh. I guess I am a troll.”


	3. I Take My Horns In

It knocks you on your metaphorical ass. You are a troll. You stare at your hands for what seems like ages. The uncertainty about _how many_ ages exactly feeding your unease. 

Your hands are gray. Your fingernails are black. What the fuck happened to you? 

You're numb after learning that you are now a troll, but Karkat doesn't let you spend that long mulling your new state over. Your question and answer session continues. You learn that this Karkat has lived on Alternia his whole life, dreading the discovery of his blood color. By the time he was 7 sweeps most of his closest friends had found him out one way or another but all of them, in their own ways, had agreed to keep his secret.

At 8 sweeps conscription came for his whole neighborhood, but he was forewarned by Sollux and left everything behind to go on the run. Sollux had been planning on going into hiding too so they met up and left their old lives behind to live together. 

Apparently, cull-worthy trolls abandon their homes regularly, so there are patrols of drones that search the planet for adults and pre-adults, culling them on sight. This is what Sollux was out patrolling for when he found you. His thick white cloak kept the sun from killing him and his forewarning had saved his and Karkat’s lives countless times.

The regular patrol was due this morning but Sollux had kept an eye out for them all day because the drones are consistent in their patrol cycle but not enough that they fly by at the same time each time they sweep through.

For Sollux and Karkat fighting them is easier than hiding from them. If the drones catch wind of troll life they will search thoroughly. But no one notices if a few drone patrols disappear. There are too many drones and so many of them die every day that it's safer to kill them then to let them find the house. So Sollux patrols, and when he finds one they fight. That's just how life is for Karkat and Sollux out here in these woods. They don’t want to be caught sleeping when the drones attack. 

In turn, you tell him about the game you played together, about those three years growing closer as friends on the meteor, about all his friends that died. He seems quiet, hearing about his friends and what they went through. You're not sure he believes any part of your story but you know so much about his life. You know so much about him that he can't help but listen.

You tell him about the planet you won, Earth C, about the Karkat you live with and all the humans, trolls, carapacians, consorts, and all the rest - it's shocking how many alien lifeforms cohabit there.

By the time you're done talking you're exhausted and Sollux is still out. Karkat helps you stumble to a little room off to the side where a single large purple recuperacoon sits and dumps you in. The slime is bathwater warm, thick, and bright neon green. It instantly soothes your aches as you sink down into it. You fall asleep before Karkat has even left the room. 

*

You wake up thirsty as all hell, and unsure how you’re going to get out of the slime pod without making a huge mess in the process. Karkat is curled up sleeping in the pod next to you, looking so much like his alter self. 

As you clamber out of the pod, dripping slime everywhere, you wonder if this is how you’re going to have to sleep every night. It is majorly inconvenient. The slime sloughs off your skin surprisingly easily but clings to your clothes. A puddle forms at the base of the pod as you climb out and your hornbeds give a tender throb at your change in elevation.

You make your way through Karkat and Sollux’s house in a daze. It takes a while. You keep having to hold onto walls to stop yourself from falling over. Your sneakers squelch over the floorboards and your clothes drip. The house is small and there are few doors. It doesn’t take you long to find the kitchen. 

You just sort of… duck your head under the faucet and drink your fill. When you pull yourself back up you have to clutch at the sink for a minute to steady yourself as the kitchen swerves around you. This is not great. The healing pod slime wasn't enough to make much of a dent in your pounding headache but it _has_ done wonders in healing the dry cracked skin you had from being out in the sun yesterday.

Now you’re just sort of dripping all over the kitchen and shit. That is way rude. But you’re not sure how to get all this slime stuff out of your clothes. Do they have a washing machine here? You don’t even have a spare change of clothes, just the shirt and jeans you flew in on.

You’re standing there all indecisive, partially zoned out, when Karkat appears in the kitchen holding his sickle at the ready. “Why the fuck did you leave your 'coon?”

You have to remind yourself that you don’t know this Karkat and he sure as fuck doesn’t know you. “I needed water dude. I had a dire fucking thirst.”

Karkat grimaces at the puddle of slime at your feet, “Wake me next time asshole, do you expect me to let you serve yourself when you were dying yesterday.” at some point his sickle is put away. He rubs his eyes and frowns harder at you, “Do you think you can find it in your sad malnourished pan go back to sleep? Just a few more hours? It’s full daylight out there. And I do not want to have to wigglersit your ass if you decide to go on another daylight wander.” You blink at him, processing.

It’s still the same day? You thought you had slept longer. Even so far from the Dead Spot you still have no sense of time. If it weren't for that you could almost still believe this was all just a prank. 

You don’t know what the fuck is up with your equilibrium but you're still off-balance as shit too. Maybe sleeping more will help. It sure helped the pain. “Yeah. I think I can manage a few more winks.”

It is not until you're back in the slime bath thing that you realize Karkat had the audacity to not drip slime everywhere like some kind of asshole. 

*

When you next blink awake you're feeling much more normal. The constant pressure in your head has abated somewhat so you actually have the clarity of mind to look around. 

The shape of the room seems quite crude, the walls are bare wood, mismatched, and made of the same wood as the shelves and dressers. The faint light cast over the otherwise dark room comes from hundreds of glowing points on the ceiling. 

Your eyes fix on the familiar sight of Karkat at his husktop, curled up on a sagging couch. You move your hand to comb your slime slicked hair out of your face and bump the hard surface of a horn. 

You can feel the pressure of your own hand all through to the root of your horn, a weird feedback loop that makes you slightly dizzy to think about. Or maybe that’s just residual dizziness that still hasn't quite gone away yet. 

You run your hand down your horn, shivering at the sensation, like a drop of water down your spine. The horn has the faintest rough texture that grows more pronounced as you move down the length of it. Even at its thinnest point, which is surprisingly sharp, it feels amazingly strong. 

You had noticed that strength with your Karkat’s horns, but thought it had to do with their small dense shape. 

You reach your other hand up so you can grip both of them like handles. The hard pain of a blooming headache bounces around your skull underlaid with the spine melting other sensation. The tips of the horns are smoother, and as you get down into the bed of them they have tiny fuzzy hairs that transition to the longer hair on your skull. You full-body shiver again, as you run your thumb through the hair there.

You look up to see Karkat staring at you wide-eyed. You lower your hands almost guiltily. 

“Sup.” 

He blushes and closes his husktop, looking away to the side. “Are you really that freaked out that you have to self trigger your calming pan juices.” 

“Oh. Oh shit. Is that what that does? I do feel kind of floaty.” 

Karkat looks at you like you’re deranged. “You are the saddest excuse for a troll I have ever met.”

“Oh, yeah, if we're on the subject of sad excuses of trollkind, how do I get out of this slime tub without dripping the stuff everywhere? Like I honest to gog didn’t mean to trek it all over your house and all I just don’t know how you _don’t_ trek it all over your house and all.”

“Were you hatched in full daylight? It just comes off!” He storms over to you and hoists you partially out of the slime. “How are you- What the! What are your clothes made of?”

“Hey don’t diss the outfit, this is a classic.” 

“Your outfit can suck a turd. I’ll get you one of mine.” Karkat turns to one of the draws and starts rummaging through it. “I don’t know how well you can sew but we have a few scraps of fabric you can use to make your sign.”

“I don’t have a sign, dude.”

He turns back to you. “Yes you do, you-” He sighs, exasperated and waves a gray jumper in your direction. “It’s right there! On your badly designed shirt!”

“Nah, dude, that’s just like a thing. It’s only on a few of my shirts. I don’t need to wear it or anything.”

“Are you telling me that you’re just going to go signless?” His eye twitches. 

“Yeah, why not?” 

He throws his hands up and goes back to rummaging through his dresser. “Well, whatever. You’re going to need a change of clothes. The ablution trap is through the door and to the right.” 

You start clambering out of the pod thing again. You clutch the rim all the way down, the feeling of the world swinging around you familiar to you now. 

“Here.” he thrusts a pile of gray and darker gray clothes at you then seems to look you up and down where you're slime covered and swaying slightly and think better of it. “Nevermind actually, follow me.”

“Yes, sir.” you start forward but have to catch yourself on a stray chair, almost toppling it over. Is this like, your horns doing? Do they fuck with your equilibrium that much?

Karkat almost reaches out to catch you but doesn’t. Instead, you follow him out of the room unsteadily. 

Karkat dumps his pile on the - hmm - you think that’s a toilet? It looks too much like a smaller version of the thing you just slept in for your comfort. “Don’t leave until you have clean clothes on. I’ll be outside.” the door clicks shut behind him. 

The bathtub is also purple but thankfully doesn’t have green slime in it. It also has normal taps you understand how to use but one is green and the other orange. The orange one gives you hot water and the green, cold. Fuck man, who knew trolls could be so different?

While the bath is running you take a look around the place. There isn’t much in here. There’s exposed plumbing leading into the walls, and a sink with a mirror above it. The walls have exposed packed dirt showing through gaps in the wood.

You take a good long look at yourself in the mirror. Black hair. That would almost be the weirdest thing about it, and yet the most human change out of everything. You reach up to take your glasses off. Your eyes are gray with red flecks showing through. Your nails are thicker like you should do some real damage with them. You didn’t even notice before. Your skin is thicker when you touch it, more leathery. Though that could also be the almost baking to death earlier. 

You shake your head to see if your hair flows differently and have to catch yourself on the sink. Fuck. That was a bad move on your part. It feels like your balance is linked to your horns, you can feel it echoing around in them when you move too quickly. 

You think the dizziness is getting better? Hopefully?

Honestly, you haven't been too worried about your weakness. Karkat has always made you less afraid. You can’t help but feel protected around this Karkat too even when he has a weapon and you don’t. 

You reach up into your hair again. It doesn’t feel different? Not like how Karkat’s does. You guess that thick coarse hair is more of a Karkat thing than a troll thing. 

You bump the base of your horn. The tingling shiver comes back. It makes you feel light. You pull your hand away.

It's a struggle to pull your clothes off. Ugh. They've gone all tacky on your skin as it dried. Your shirt keeps getting caught on your horns and you hear it tear once when tugging it off. Bending over to pull your shoes off is a bad idea and you have to catch yourself on the edge of the bath so you don't faceplant but you manage to get them off too. It takes a similar effort to get your pants off. 

Also, you don’t have a dick. What the fuck.

It’s just smooth down there, like a ken doll, like Karkat is when he gets changed in the morning. 

Like a troll.

Your horns ring through your head - extra limbs you didn't have half a day ago. 

You are a fucking troll. 

You’re a -

And then you faint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it looks like there are going to be 7 chapters but lets see how this goes


	4. I Take My Friend's Hand

You've been unconscious for too long. Someone slaps at your face and it rings and rebounds through your head making you groan. 

“Oh thank the mirthful messiahs, you’re not dead.” You blink your eyes open to Karkat looking down at you, just like the first time.

You are a troll.

Your horns hurt.

“Can you stand?” you blink up at him.

“I think so. My horns hurt.”

“OK, get off the floor first.” you take his offered hand and he hauls you up. The room spins around you again. You are really getting sick of it doing that.

Man, you are fully naked, aren't you? You also left a smear of green slime on the floor. This is the worst any Karkat has ever seen you. And yet even when he doesn’t know you he's still so compassionate. You love this man. 

”Thanks.” He helps you into the tub and you sink down into the warm water. “I really appreciate you guys saving me.“

“Oh. Uhhh. No problem.” He sure seems flustered. Right. This Karkat doesn't know you and you're naked in front of him. You sigh and sink down into the water, “You really are a strange troll.”

“Yeah.” There's a cloth on the edge of the bath and you start washing the slime off your skin absently. “I don’t know how I got here. Alternia I mean. Well, I think I know how I got here but the more I think about it the more insane it seems. I'm a fucking troll now.” The slime easily dissolves in the water. Karkat is standing by the door looking away when you glance back at him. 

He talks to the wall, “You never told me how you ended up half baked out in the sun.”

“Yeah, OK. This is going to sound crazy but you asked for it. I touched a stone and it teleported me here.” You stare down at your gray skin as you wash the slime off. It still doesn’t feel quite real. 

“You’re right. That does sound insane.” 

“I know, right. I don’t even know if the stone came through with me or if it stayed back on Earth. I was too out of it to check. I don’t think I’d be able to find my way back to find out.” You’re not sure what would happen if you did find it. Would it take you back? Would it turn you back human? Did it even survive the trip? Or is it back in Earth C with your Karkat?

“I could get you back there. You didn’t exactly hide your trail. I could easily follow your tracks back to wherever you came from.”

You turn around in the tub to face Karkat, sloshing water over the side. “You can do that?”

Karkat is still resolutely facing away from you. He's cute when he's blushing. “I'm a fucking brilliant tracker. How else do you think we find food out here in the middle of nowhere? We don’t get pre-packaged food straight from the delivery drones anymore. The drones that _do_ came out this way only deliver death. I catch our food. I was planning on hunting tonight anyway. You can come with me.”

“Fuck. I could go back home.” If you do actually find the spot. If the stone is there. If it does more than a one-way trip. So many 'if's'. But like hell are you not going to try. You pluck the cloth back out of the water to continue cleaning yourself. 

“Wherever _that_ is yeah. Though if it takes more than half the day to find wherever your _home_ is we’ll have to forget about it. Like fuck am I spending more than a night searching for some mysterious location that may or may not exist.” 

Hell. Yes. You’ll take the chance even if it doesn’t end up with you safe at home, “I don’t think it was that far.” by this point you’re just rubbing the cloth over your body absently, all of the slime already washed off. “Do you have a towel?” 

“Fuck me. I forgot it. I’ll be right back.” Karkat leaves to go find the towel, leaving you to sit in your warm green bathwater. You can hear him clattering around the house. This Karkat seems calmer than your Karkat. You guess spending years out in the wilderness with no contact with society will do that to a troll. 

Your lack of dick makes your brain sort of go sideways, so you stop thinking about it. This is not a situation you ever expected to be in. You flex your hands in front of you. You feel the extra weight on your neck as you lean forward.

Black claws, gray skin, horns fully integrated with your skull. You are a troll. 

You are a fucking troll and there is nothing you can do about it. 

Huh. You don’t have a belly button anymore. It shouldn't shock you as much as it does. You’ve seen all this on Karkat before. You know that trolls don’t have belly buttons. But you’ve always had a belly button. A belly button isn’t something you expect to wake up and find missing.

You reach up to feel your horns again. The texture is still weird under the tough skin of your fingers, but it’s the fact that you can feel the touch of your fingers in your horn that sits strangely in your head. They aren't just a prosthetic that’s been glued to your skull or something. They have nerves and when you tug on them you don’t just feel it in the root, you feel it all the way in the tip of the horns.

You drop your hands back down to the water.

Haha! Hey, you don’t have nipples anymore either. It’s just one thing after the other isn’t it. You feel a hand grip your shoulder but don’t have the presence to jump. You turn around. It’s Karkat.

“Hey. Hey, snap out of it.” He shakes you. 

“I’m awake.” You mutter but don’t push him off. “How the fuck am I a troll? That doesn’t just happen to people.” You stare back down at your hands. 

“Uhhh. let's just get you out of the tub and back into clothes. Humans wear clothes right?” 

You scoff. “Yeah, of course. I was wearing clothes when you found me. We _are_ civilized.” 

“Well, I don’t know. You might have been wearing clothes because you’re a troll and trolls wear clothes. Anyway, I’m going to wait outside. You get changed. Holler if you need me.” Karkat steps back, his hand leaving your shoulder. You didn’t realize how much comfort that simple touch was giving you until it was gone.

Before you can say anything else Karkat is closing the door behind him.

You spend a few minutes sitting in the cooling water. Then you shake yourself and stand up.

*

You find Karkat banging around in the kitchen area and realize you are fucking starving. You didn't notice because you've been unconscious for a while by it must have been like two days? Since you last ate. 

"What's cookin' good lookin'," you ask on instinct. Karkat flushes and purses his lips. Fuck. Why can't you keep your thoughts to yourself? This isn't your boyfriend anymore. You can't just act like you would with your Karkat.

"Grubloaf. If you're going to be staying with us for a while I figure I'd have to feed you eventually." He says. He pulls out a square meat product of questionable origins. You don't know much about home cooking but you know meat isn't usually green while it's consumable.

Karkat has made grubloaf for himself loads of times before but the prospect of actually eating it yourself has never crossed your mind. "Great." You say.

"What, you don't like grubloaf? We've got larva chips in the thermal hull but you'll have to heat them up yourself" 

"I'll take the grubloaf." You say. You don't know what larva chips are but grubloaf at least doesn't look like you're eating insects.

The room is small and barely has the space to fit a small table with two chairs as well as all the cooking equipment but it manages it. 

Karkat places a plate of the grubloaf in front of you, his own drizzled with a dark red sauce you could almost pretend was ketchup, and digs in.

Trying not to think about it too much you take a bite of your own thick slab of the loaf. It's thick and mealy - almost like a dense bread - but it has a rich meat flavor you can't quite place the origins of. (It's bugs. Don't think about it)

You drizzle a bit of the grubsause on the side of your plate too and dip a piece of the loaf into the sauce. It's surprisingly sweet and tangy but adds a nice contrast to the savory loaf.

"Woah, this ain't bad." You say, taking another bite.

"What. Did you think we were savages just because we live out in the wilderness? I know how to cook." He says gesturing to you with a strip of his loaf.

"I know you can cook, Karkat. I was just never into the whole Alternian food. You weren't into human food either. I think it was one of those culture clashes we just had to deal with."

"Hmm." Karkat goes quiet at your words, brows furrowed. 

"What's wrong?" you ask, "What did I say?"

"What was I to you? - I mean him - What was he to you?"

"You were..." You think about it. You and Karkat didn't really get that deep into the quadrants. You're not even sure if what you had counted as human romance. But of everyone, he was the most important person in your life. You trusted him like no one else, "You were everything." You admit.

"It's kind of shitty of me to take you away from your other Karkat." Karkat says, making eye contact with his food, "Like - _you actually know him._ He actually knew you! I'm just some proxy you clung to because we have the same face. He must miss you so much and here I am hogging all the Dave for myself."

"No. Karkat. Like, I do miss him. I can't deny I do but -" you look away. "You're still here. It's still you."

"It's not though. It's fine. I have Sollux. We should get you back to your magic teleportation rock so you can get back to your real Karkat."

Karkat grabs his plate and yours and stands up to dump them in the sink. You do want to go back to your Karkat, you really fucking do. 

But. 

You hug Karkat from behind, he stills in your arms. "You are real."

*

It turns out that Karkat can’t trace back to where Sollux found you until Sollux gets back. You didn’t realize until now but Sollux flew you back after he found you out there. It’s apparently really fucking hard to track a person who can fly because flying doesn't leave a trail. So instead Karkat decides to take you out hunting with him.

Karkat says that if you’re going to be staying with them for a while then he may as well teach you how to survive. Man, Karkat is so good. He barely even knows you and he's already invited you to live with him because you have nowhere else to go. He even gives your sword back saying, "I'm not going to leave you fucking defenseless. That would just mean I'd have to protect two redblooded mutants from being culled instead of one. Here. Just take it."

So hunting.

The sky is the same dusky purple of when you first appeared in this forest, making the trees seem red in the light. Karkat takes you on a long winding track through the forest, pointing out animal tracks and other signs of life within the undergrowth. 

A bush rustles while Karkat is loudly explaining why stealth is important. You spot a beetle the size of a cat and freeze.

Karkat immediately pounces. His dominant hand cuts forward with his weapon while his other hand crushes the bug against the ground, capturing it. His sickle bounces off the hard plate of its hide once and there’s a brief sharp clicking whistle from the creature before Karkat hooks his sickle in the gap in its neck, slipping between hard plates, and yanking upwards. 

There is a brief splatter of blue, then the sound cuts off.

You inch closer as Karkat sits back. “Well, that was fast. I usually don’t find them this close to our hive.” Its legs keep twitching. “This one must not have got the memo that there’s an apex predator in this forest cluster.” 

“Let me guess. The apex predator is you.” 

“Did you not just witness that badass kill?” He scoffs, “Come on then. The next beetle can be yours.” 

You’ve never thought much about bugs before, they sort of repulsed you. You were more into dead preserved mammals and live birds. But this one large is huge and much more interesting. You can see the irregular texture of its shell, the connections of its joints. Karkat quickly stores the kill in his sylladex before you can get a good study on, and both of you move on. On to the next kill. 

Karkat says Sollux is going to meet you both at a certain clearing. Sollux is still patrolling, but he needs to eat too. If Karkat didn’t make him eat Sollux would forget, so your main reason for heading out today is for Karkat to meet up with Sollux on his patrol route and force-feed him.

To the chagrin of Karkat, you don’t stumble upon any more bugs for you to try your own hunting skills. You don't even make it to the meeting clearing.

You startle at the sound of a faint crack. But the noise soon grows into distant yelling and then a huge red _thing_ goes flying overhead and holy shit was that Sollux clinging to its side!? 

Before it even disappears into the trees overhead Karkat is racing off in the direction Sollux fell. You thought Sollux was _good_ at fighting those things? Isn’t that why he was looking for them? Another Huge red beast speeds lazily in the direction of Karkat and Sollux, making almost no sound at all.

Shit, you have to help them.

You take one step forward and with a thump another huge hulking red monster lands on the ground in front of you, cutting you off from the direction Karkat just ran. 

A drone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i try not to leave clifhangers but alas, the rest of the fic is clifhangers. the whole fic is clifhangers. and its only annoying to the people reading this as its being released. those of you reading this in the future have nothing to be annoyed about because the next chapter already exists
> 
> its sad the ending dont already exists. current me still has to write it :/


	5. I Take Someones Life

Fuck. Your sword is in your hands before you can blink. It sizes you up with its slitted white eyes before coming to the obvious conclusion and lunging. 

You flashstep out of the way and promptly fall on your ass as the world swerves around you. Fuck. You're still dizzy as all fuck. That was disorienting. Your step was all out of wack with your equilibrium. It's like you're learning how to flashstep all over again. 

You sense rather than hear the drone's meaty hand coming towards you. It's only the years of instincts trained into you that allow you to roll out of the way. It punches down again with its other hand, right where your head was.

Using a flashstep-roll combo is less likely to put you on your ass only because you are already there. But this is not sustainable, you're just dodging - you need to attack.

You flashstep-roll to your feet in the wake of another swipe from the drone and manage hold onto your stance by the grit of your teeth. But you're standing. And you managed to avoid stabbing yourself with your sword while you were rolling around on the ground. It's progress. 

The next time the drone comes after you you duck under its swing and strike back, hard and fast with your sword. 

The sword breaks in half against the hard shell of its armor and the next punch hits you square in the stomach with huge force. It sends you flying off your feet to land several meters away with a loud 'oof'.

You're back on your feet in a second, even though you're struggling to pull in a breath and your sword is broken in your hand. You can't lose this fight. You have to get back to Karkat. You can't just die on this strange planet and leave him behind not knowing where you went.

As the drone turns and comes towards you you grip your sword and charge. 

It swipes and you jump back from its razor-sharp claws. That was too fucking close. You jump over it and barely feel where it catches you across the ribs, using both your momentum and its own forward swing to plunge your sword between the moving plates of its neck. You suck in a breath and twist, putting all your strength into the small amount of leverage you have and feel the meat that connects the drone beneath its plates pull apart as it's head pops off and disconnects from its body.

You're panting as you roll off the falling drone and land in a slump on the grass. Its head rests by your foot.

Fuck that hurt. Several areas across your body hurt more than most, your side where you were caught across the ribs, your back where you slammed into the ground, your head is still pounding. You've had worse. You captchalogue your sword and pull yourself up back to standing. There's no time to stop. You need to find Karkat.

You hear them before you see them. Which is a good thing because you weren't paying enough attention to see exactly where they went. You follow Karkat's unintelligible shouting and come out in a clearing that obviously wasn't there a few minutes ago.

Several trees are toppled with burn marks racing up their trunks. More burn marks score the ground. Karkat is facing off against two drones, one of which is covered in scorch marks but seems unhindered despite them.

Karkat keeps feinting and circling back always to the same spot. You wonder why he doesn't just go on the attack when you notice Sollux lying behind his feet, unconscious and bleeding yellow from his face. 

The next time Karkat feints you flashstep over. Your head only pounds a little. You're getting the hang of rolling with the vertigo.

Karkat's been keeping two drones back. Whenever he goes after one the other circles around and tries to get at Sollux. This time instead you block the scorched drone's approach with a clang of your half sword.

Karkat hasn't seen you yet. He growls, "Fucking die already!" swiping across the second drones carapace with both sickles. It leaves harsh scratches on the shell, matching the many scratches already covering the beast but does nothing to slow it down. He turns and swings at the other you already have locked on your sword and you gracefully duck under his attack, sidestep around him, and stab at the drone he just disengaged. 

You see him blink at you for a second and then he seems to come to some sort of conclusion, snarls, and crosses blades with the scorched drone.

After that is doesn't take long. With the drone's attention split, they can't try any more sneak attacks to get at Sollux. Every time you duck a swipe Karkat is there backing you up. He manages to get a hook into the scorched drone's elbow and lobs its arm clean off. 

Then when Karkat turns to attack the other drone you sever the scorched drone through the knee on the same side.

It falls face-first towards you, exposing the back of its neck and you don't hesitate to plunge what's left of your sword through the first gap you see, ending its attempts to get back up. The sword sinks deeper as you lean on it, wedged. You leave it there, stepping back.

By the time you turn around, you see Karkat on the second drones back. He hooks one sickle into its neck and pulls up in the same move he used to kill the beetle earlier. The fight is over.

Karkat rides the drone to the ground. He clambers off it, shakes both his sickles of black blood and slots them back into his strife specibus. Hot. You do the same with your own sword. You really don't want to be without a weapon - even a shitty half-broken one is better than no weapon at all.

"Fuck," Karkat says, and abruptly turns from you. He drops to his knees in front of Sollux, his hands hovering over his bloodied shirt. "Fuck, Sollux." Oh fuck. Sollux looks like he's been beaten to shit. He's bleeding out of all his face holes and his cloak is singed and torn in places. 

He looks dead.

"Shit shit shit shit shit." Karkat gingerly pulls Sollux's head into his lap, smearing yellow blood everywhere in the process. Devastated is not a good look on him. You shake yourself into action and drop to your knees on the ground in front of them. Karkat isn't doing anything, just freaking out. He stares down at Sollux's limp form, trembling, eyes wide with fear. 

When you hover your hand over Sollux's face. A small puff of warm air ghosts across your palm. "He's breathing. He's gonna be OK, Karkat." He clutches him closer and lets out a sob.

You watch him struggle to pull himself together, "OK. Alright." Karkat ways, calming himself down, "We need to get him back to the hive. Fuck. I shouldn't have let him stay out so long, I should have gone after him sooner. I'm such a fucking idiot." He's dissolving again. Another tear leaks down his cheek.

"You can berate yourself later. We should move." You say. You're more concerned with getting Karkat focused on action and not letting him stew in his panic. Action always helps him calm down.

"Right." Karkat stands up, cradling Sollux in his arms. Woah. The dude is strong. He sets off at his familiar quick pace, grim determination in his eyes. You hurry after them.

*

You are struggling to keep up by the time you make it back to the house. Karkat ducks inside ahead of you, still carrying the unconscious Sollux in his arms. 

Fuck. You're exhausted. He's the one carrying the extra weight but that fight really took a lot more out of you than it ought to have. What gives?

You lean against the doorway, panting for breath, feeling woozy. You have an arm clutched around your middle where a killer stitch is brewing. Except when you pull your arm away it's covered in blood.

Oh. You guess the drone must have caught you at some point. Black creeps in around the edges of your vision. You have the presence of mind to lower yourself to the ground before you faint.

*

"Can you stop collapsing for five minutes!? I feel like I'm surrounded by anemic lunatics with the self-preservation skills of exploding creapcreatures with the player within range." You blink your eyes open. Karkat is standing over you, still covered in yellow blood. You feel kind of floaty.

"Your healing words have saved me. I'll have to tell the grandkids - I almost died one time of bloodloss but was shouted back to life by old Karbones over there."

"You can still sass me when you're dying of blood loss?" He raises an eyebrow.

"It is a skill of mine." You feel better with solid ground underneath you - less woozy. "You seem in a better mood. How's Sollux?"

"Sollux is fine. It was just psionic overload. He even woke up briefly to call me a whiny little bitch. I'm more concerned about you. Why are you bleeding out?"

"I got got by a drone. Didn't notice."

"How the fuck do you not notice!" He face-palms. "Fuck, alright. Can you walk?"

"Why would I need to walk? I'm good down here."

He gives you a seriously doubtful look. You are lying half-in half-out of the hive, effectively blocking the doorway. But the floaty feeling hasn't let up and you feel like you're going to float away if you try and move. 

"Fine." He crouches down and hooks one arm under your shoulders and one under your knees. You only have time for your eyes to widen behind your shades before you're being hoisted bodily up into the air and marched over to the couch. "Oooh, Mr. Vantas, oooh." You drape a hand over your head dramatically. "My savior."

"And don't fucking forget it." He says, putting you down gently on the yellow stained couch. A bowel of yellow-tinted water sits on the coffee table. 

"Where did Sollux end up?" you ask.

"He's in the 'coon. He'll recover faster that way. Stop worrying about him, where are _you_ hurt?" 

Instead of replying you lift your shirt. A shallow red gash cuts across your stomach, sluggishly leaking blood. Though it looks like it's mostly stopping. It has stained through your shirt and partway into your pants. You're surprised you didn't notice earlier. 

Karkat grimaces, "I'm going to get a new cloth."

*

You're silent while Karkat cleans your wound with a clean cloth. His brow is furrowed, concentrating on getting all the blood and gunk away from the long gash, touch soft. You swallow around the vibrations in your throat.

He's so careful with you, you don't want to disturb the moment. It's a Karkat you've never really seen before. So careful with you. After the game ended there was sort of a lack of stab wounds all round. And when people did get hurt, they had Jane to patch them up - no first aid needed.

Karkat squeezes out the cloth one last time and pulls out a blue and red first aid kit. He rifles through it for a second until he finds a roll of thick green tape with a triumphant trill.

You're purring away like an eager cat but Karkat doesn't comment. He measures the tape vaguely against your wound and tears off the length with his teeth. On one side it's covered in a thick green gel. He positions it gel side down carefully, pressing it over the wound so it covers the length, and smooths it down with a hand to stick it in place.

"There." One of his hands rests on your hip. "The gel should set in in a few minutes though you'll probably have to get in the 'coon if you want it to heal faster than a garden shellbeast."

"Thanks. You didn't have to help me. I could have done that myself. But thanks." You say.

Karkat flushes, "I wanted to." He says, patting absently at your hip. "Plus I don't believe your story about being able to do it yourself. Experience has told me that you are a bumbling imbecile who has no concept of the difference between your nook and your seed flap."

Uhh. Actually, you had no idea those were different things. You stare up at him blankly.

"Jesus bulge-fondling Christ." Karkat pulls away so as to face-palm with both hands and sit down heavily on the chair opposite you in a defeated slump. "I have met some grade-A idiots in my time but you have taken the sugary grubloaf. That is a magnanimous feat of stupidity you have achieved, Dave. You should be proud of yourself."

"I try my best," you say. You can feel the effects of the gel-tape setting into your skin. And by god, the effects are both profound and interesting. You poke at the plaster/bandage with one black claw, a dull throb of pain echoing out from where you touched. 

"Don't touch that," Karkat says. He stands up. "I'm putting you in the 'coon before you decide the most interesting thing to do would be to hurt yourself further." He hooks his arms around your shoulders and under your legs and lifts you up again, not even asking if you can walk yourself this time. 

You lean into his hold. You're sort of sick of feeling gross and weak but Karkat is warm. He's the only familiar presence in this wholly unfamiliar place. He shoulders his way through the bedroom door gripping you tight.

The slime is thick but you can still see the faint shape of Sollux curled in on himself under the surface. Karkat lowers you in, your head swoops with the change in elevation. Blood loss is not a good feeling but at least it's better than that headache you had yesterday.

You sink in up to your chin and stare up at Karkat, "Where are you going to sleep?" The 'coon is pretty full with only two people already. And you don't spot another 'coon in this small room. You're sort of squished up against Sollux here and Karkat is short but he's not small. You can feel the slime sinking into your skin already and your eyelids droop.

He scratches his head, "I'll manage. There's a stingerbeast hive a few hours from here we could turn into a new one at some point. Just get some rest. And call me if you have to get up again. I'll be out in the other room."

You nod and captchalogue your shades before you sink up to your nose in the slime. Sleep time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive spent the last few weeks working on another fic you will see in time but this one is still in the works dont worry. only a few chapters to go and they are mostly written if short


	6. I Meet a New Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> welp

You wake up when someone shrieks and kicks you in the side. The slime absorbs some of the force but it still knocks you hard into the inside of the 'coon. Your head feels slow with sleep.

The door slams open and Karkat is yelling, "What! What!" as you shake yourself awake. 

You watch as Sollux scrambles his scrawny ass out the opening of the 'coon and falls out of sight with a thump you feel rather than see.

Weak. That kick sucked-ass. And you should know. You're adept in the ways of ass-kicking. You guess if Sollux is the laser eye guy then he didn't bother learning any melee. 

You blink all slow. You're still a bit out of it from the effects of the slime.

"What the fuck KK!" Sollux yells, You wade to the edge of the 'coon and peer down at him.

"You OK down there?" you ask. Sollux splutters up at you. He seems a little freaked out. Not that you can blame him. You're the king of freaking yourself out.

Karkat crouches down to help Sollux up. Sollux slaps a wet hand against his chest, "Why the fuck is that random troll we found sleeping with me in our recuperacoon!" He asks.

"We only have one recuperacoon! What did you expect me to do with him? He needed to heal. It was fine." 

"No, it was not fine. What the fuck? We don't even know this schmuck. And here you go letting him near me while I sleep like some pan-fried idiot."

"Hey, chill dude. I'm cool." You say.

He turns back to you, hand still pressed against Karkat's chest, almost hissing from aggression, "Oh you're 'cool' are you? Fuck you. I don't know you."

"What the fuck do you think he would do to you anyway?" Karkat says, trying to help Sollux up. Sollux slaps his hand away and pulls himself to his feet, clutching at his head with a wince. Karkat gestures to you, "Look at him. He's harmless. Stop being so fucking paranoid. You're such a whiny wriggler." You frown. You're not harmless. You can be kick-ass if you want to.

"Fuck you," Sollux says. His eyes spark blue and red briefly but he winces again and it stops. "Just because he's injured doesn't mean he's trustworthy." He pokes Karkat in the chest who doesn't so much as step back, just furrows his brows harder. 

You don't like the way they're squaring up on each other. You wave a hand between them, trying to get their attention off each other and onto you. "Hey. Woah. Chill. Don't fight on my account."

"We do not need an auspistice," Sollux says, voice dripping with venom. He storms past Karkat. Most of the slime has sloughed off him onto the floor. 

"Well maybe if you didn't flip your shit at me every goddamn second he wouldn't think we did!" Karkat says, storming after him.

They're just like an old married couple from the sitcoms. You shake the slime from your hair and are glad to find that your horns aren't still fucking with you. The slime slides off your new clothes just like Karkat said it would as you clamber out of the 'coon and slide down the side. The world doesn't sway around you. You take that as a win. From the other room you hear a screech, "YOU GAVE HIM BACK HIS STRIFE SPECIBUS!?"

Whelp. You had best go out there and help Karkat with that. It seems like you have caused hells of trouble for those two.

You find Karkat outside the bathroom door. Sollux looks to have locked himself in there. 

"Fuck, Sollux. I'm sorry OK." Karkat says. You don't hear Sollux reply. "You weren't here. I know I shouldn't have trusted Dave so blindly. But I did. I do."

Sollux says something through the door you don't quite catch. You think you hear something about 'drones' in amongst lots of hissing swears. Karkat replies, "Yeah. Exactly. Which is why you weren't fucking here. And it's not like you're one to talk. You trusted him too. Your primary mindset is 'protect our own - fuck anyone else' and yet you're the one who bought him back here in the first place!"

The door swings open and Sollux gets up into Karkat's face, using his height advantage to loom over him. He's still wearing the same slime-stained clothes. "Well maybe saving him was a mistake." He notices you standing there just after he says it and flushes yellow, looking down.

"Dave saved your life you know," Karkat says to him.

"What?"

"You were knocked out. Dave got hurt helping me protect you from the drones. That's why he was in the recuperacoon with you. He had to heal too."

Sollux slumps, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "Sorry. I just - I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said. I was scared. I didn't want to trust anyone else."

"Well, you need to get that stick out of your nook once in a while and trust me," Karkat says. Sollux nods still looking glum and Karkat's face goes soft. He steps forward and hugs Sollux around the waist. "Fuck we're both so stupid. It always turns into a pissing match. We can never just calm our fucking shameglobes down long enough to talk to each other like grown trolls."

"Eheheh, yeah." Sollux presses his face into Karkat's hair, then steps back from Karkat's hold and looks up at you. "So I guess two outcasts has turned into three."

"If you'll take me. I just - I don't know what else to do." 

"Except try and get back to your own world through the magic rock," Karkat says. 

Right. "Yeah, that too."

"A magic rock." Sollux repeats, voice layered with scepticism.

"Yeah. It sort of transported me from my own planet where I was human and not a troll to this one where I'm not human and am a troll. Which, I'm not gonna lie, is kind of fucked up." Sollux looks more are more appalled the more words come out of your face hole. You are about to undo all the work Karkat just did to make Sollux like you. "I wandered a ways away from it before you found me out there. If we can find it, maybe it can take me back?" 

Sollux looks back to Karkat, looking disgusted. Karkat just shrugs. "It won't hurt to try."

*

It turns out Sollux found you surprisingly close to their base considering you could walk for weeks in this forest and not find a single sign of civilization. It's only like half an hours walk away and from there it shouldn't be hard to track the path of you stumbling your way through the forest.

"Can't you, like, fly or something though?" you ask over breakfast. Karkat dragged the spare chair into the kitchen from the bedroom so you can all sit around the cramped little table in there. The circles under his eyes have gotten darker from yesterday. You know he probably didn't sleep while you and Sollux were healing. 

But you aren't going to call him out on it. Karkat has insomnia at the best of times so if he goes another night without sleeping then you'll worry. 

"Ugh. No. Yes. Not right now." Sollux says. "I burned out my psi fighting those drones yesternight. I'd probably collapse if I tried to lift more than a spoon." He pokes around at his piece of the beetle from your hunting trip Karkat fried up. 

"Shit, dude. That's rough." You managed to nab another slice of grubloaf. The beetle smells delicious but it still has bits of wing and exoskeleton attached. You'll work up to it.

"The drones were fucking late," Karkat says. "You shouldn't have had to patrol for that long."

"It's not like we have much of a choice. If they find our hive they'll trash the place. I'm the only one who can fly. I'm the one who has to do it."

Karkat looks disgruntled and mutters something about it being 'hoofbeast shit.' He takes a huge angry bite of his own half of the beetle.

"How long were you even out there for? It had to have been more than a day," you say.

"He was out there for like three nights straight!" Karkat says. "No wonder he was worn out as all fuck by the end of it! The drones are trying to kill us anyway. They could at least allow us the common decency of murdering us on time!"

"It's just like you to complain that your scheduled culling was mismanaged," Sollux says.

"Yeah, well. It is. One time they just didn't turn up." Karkat goes on. "I had to drag Sollux back to the hive after five nights patrolling and by that point, he was so exhausted he didn't even fight me."

"Eh. I lived." Sollux says. 

*

You set off at a quick step with Karkat leading the group. The sky glows with purple light that by now has become familiar to you. Sollux seems to know exactly where you're going even if he flew the last time around. It doesn't take you long to get to the place you fell. 

Sollux scratches his head. "You were around here somewhere. I think it would honestly be easier for me to spot where I found you if I was looking from the air." Karkat treks back and forth, apparently looking at the ground for clues that will tell him someone was lying in a bush here a day ago. You're not sure if something like that is hard to spot.

While Karkat is searching for an outline of a corpse, you and Sollux stand around being useless. "Sorry for being a douche earlier. I just sort of assumed you would be like any other troll." Sollux says.

"I do look the part. But hey, don't sweat it, man. I would have been the same if it weren't for Karkat there to back you up."

"Don't let him hear you say that. We don't want to inflate his ego. Fuck knows enough of our friends suffer from similar afflictions."

It makes you pause. You’re not gonna lie. You spend a good chunk of your time around Karkat riling him up but never to the point of true anger. Never shouting on your end. You know trolls have their weird rivalry romance but what you saw back at the hive. Sollux treated Karkat like he loved him. Like how you love him. And yet they fought so passionately too.

"What is Karkat to you?" you ask. "Like it seems like he means a lot to you but what's with the rough treatment?"

Sollux looks away, "Yeah I'm a giant piece of shit. I don't know how he stands me sometimes. We've always treated each other like this. And since we started living together we've been a flip-flop of all the quadrants. He just means a lot to me. I don't know. But I think it's better like this. We're outcasts anyway. We may as well do what we fucking want,” He chuckles and quirks an eyebrow at you. “You're one to talk though. You may say you know Karkat but he only just met you and-. I don't know. You're already close to him." Your surprised that Sollux doesn't sound like a jealous lover when he said that. More like he's stating facts.

"He was it for me in the other timeline. I was closer to him than anyone."

"Well if this whole rock quest doesn't work out--if you do stay with us--I wouldn't mind having you around despite my initial reaction to you."

You grin, "I think you're alright too."

Karkat gives a triumphant yell. The two of you wander over to him.

"Fucking finally. What took you so long, KK?" Sollux says.

"I'm not even going to acknowledge that pitiful attempt at riling me up. I am the best tracker in this godforsaken forest. I found the path. Let's go."

Karkat starts off again in a direction you don't remember at all. But you trust him.

It's a much faster walk when your not delirious and stumbling all over the place. You’d say it takes only an hour ten before the forest starts looking more familiar. Like you're walking through a red and purple version of the one on Earth C. "I think we're getting close," You say.

"Yeah. It's the middle of fucking nowhere. It literally looks exactly the same as 10 minutes ago," Sollux says, "The fact that you came from the middle of the forest and can't even fly is frankly astonishing."

You're pretty sure the clearing is just up over that rise. "Yeah but this looks like the same forest as the one on Earth C. Fuck, dude, just trust me. I know this place." 

Ahead is a gap in the trees where more moonlight shines through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey. its been a year. hope you all are doing well (haha. /joke). 
> 
> i really struggled with chapter 7 so i put off writing it but i dont go back to work until jan 7 so i thought i may as well try and wrangle some of my old fics back onto order least i go blind with boredom. 
> 
> this fic will be complete before the new year or so help me!


End file.
